Smile and House of Boards invite board members and C-level decision makers to an exclusive evening dedicated to Digital Autonomy on Thursday 3 December 2026 at The National Golf Brussels in Sterrebeek.
Digital independence, sovereignty and open-source integration have become questions of governance and resilience — not just IT.
This session offers strategic perspectives, real experience from peers and an open debate to help guide future decisions. Networking is at the heart of the evening, which closes with a three-course dinner offered by Smile.
Under the US CLOUD Act, American authorities can require US-based providers to hand over data — wherever in the world it is stored.
Access to mailboxes, cloud and work environments can be restricted by decisions taken outside Europe. Continuity is no longer a given.
Rising attacks and breaches make concentration on a few dominant platforms a strategic risk, not only a technical one.
Licence and cloud costs keep climbing while switching gets harder. Many companies hesitate over the perceived cost of change — yet alternatives protect both your data and your budget.
NIS2, DORA and growing EU pressure for sovereignty are raising the bar. Insurers and institutions will increasingly set conditions on how and where you run your systems.
Open-source and European solutions for cloud, operating systems, mail and collaboration are becoming mainstream — and agentic AI can run on sovereign architectures too.
Digital autonomy touches risk governance, continuity, compliance and capital allocation — the core of the board’s duty of care.
In every budget round, boards decide what to invest in; many do not yet know where their dependencies lie. Every board should be asking:
The National Golf Brussels
Du Roy de Blicquylaan 7, 1933 Sterrebeek
Set on the former Sterrebeek racecourse, one of Belgium’s finest championship golf courses — in a green setting a few minutes from Brussels and Brussels Airport.
Smile has formally asked House of Boards to suggest two speakers for each of the two panel sessions — four speakers in total. Each panel brings together four voices sharing real experience: what worked, what did not, and the lessons learned along the way. Below is an overview of both panels, their key topics and the profiles we are looking for.
2 speakers from HoB
C-level executives, Board Chairs or Independent Directors with experience in corporate IT strategy, risk governance or digital transformation.
2 speakers from HoB
CIOs, CTOs, Chief Digital or AI Officers, or Directors supervising enterprise AI implementation and data governance.
Seats are limited, so please send your suggestions as soon as possible. Questions? We are happy to help at team@houseofboards.eu.
Thank you very much — we look forward to your suggestions.
Thursday 3 Dec 2026
From 16:00, dinner 18:30
Participation is free of charge
Date: Thursday 3 December 2026
Time: From 16:00, dinner at 18:30
Location: The National Golf Brussels
Du Roy de Blicquylaan 7
1933 Sterrebeek, Belgium
Participation: Free of charge
Availability: Limited to 100 seats, first come, first served
Dinner: Three-course dinner offered by Smile
To reserve your seat, email Jules Daunay de Chaisemartin — jules.daunay@sensiolabs.com, with a copy to team@houseofboards.eu.
Please mention your name, company and function, and whether you will join the dinner.
Would you like to receive the printed event booklet? Let Esma El Harti (esma.elharti@smile.eu) know.
We look forward to welcoming you on 3 December.
Founded in 1991, Smile is the European leader in open-source digital services, with more than 2,000 experts in 9 countries.
Smile helps organisations keep full control over their technology choices and digital assets with sovereign, open and scalable solutions — from digital and e-commerce platforms and business applications to data, embedded systems and infrastructure.
The Smile Group includes SensioLabs, creator of the Symfony framework, and alter way. In Belgium, Smile is based in Sint-Pieters-Woluwe.
House of Boards is a Belgian network of some 400 directors and board members, working on company architecture, governance, talent and capital — discreetly connecting business owners, boards and investors.
